Bengaluru, Apr 27: Congress and BJP tonight named their candidates for the May 19 by elections to Chincholi and Kundgol.

Congress has fielded Subhash Rathod from Chincholi and Kusumavathi Shivalli from Kundgol.

Rathod and Shivalli will be pitted against BJP candidates Avinash Jadhav and Chikkanagouda Patil.

Their candidature was announced by Congress general secretary Mukul Wasnik in a press note Saturday night.

Subhash Rathod from Banjara community is close to Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge, whereas Shivalli is the widow of Kundgol Congress MLA C S Shivalli, whose demise about a month ago warranted the bypoll.

Meanwhile, BJP too announced the name of the two candidates from the two constituencies.

The BJP has decided to field Dr Umesh Jadhav's son Avinash Jadhav from Chincholi and Chikkanagouda Patil from Kundgol," BJP spokesperson S Prakash said.

Jadhav is the son of Congress MLA Dr Umesh Jadhav, who resigned from the assembly and joined the BJP to take on Congress heavyweight Mallikarjun Kharge in the Gulbarga Lok Sabha election recently.

His resignation warranted the bypoll in Chincholi.

The Congress decided the candidates at a meeting led by AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge K C Venugopal, state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao and former chief minister Siddaramaiah at the state Congress headquarters this afternoon.

Congress working president Eshwar Khandre, deputy chief minister Dr G Parameshwara, and many other senior Congress functionaries were present.

The elections will be held on May 19 and the election commission has already issued a notification to the effect.

The counting will take place on May 23 along with the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections.

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Bengaluru: A life convict lodged in Ballari Central Prison has successfully cleared the second PUC examination.

Ashok Kumar S, who appeared for the examination under prison escort, secured 481 marks out of 600, registering 80.1 percent. 

Director General of Police (Prisons and Correctional Services), Alok Kumar (IPS), shared the development on his official ‘X’ handle, commending the inmate’s achievement.

In his post, he stated that it was heartening to see a life convict score over 80 percent in the examination, adding that the inmate had appeared from Ballari Central Prison under escort.

He further noted that the achievement reflected that the “walls of the prison have not subdued his hopes for a better future.”

Alok Kumar in his post also shared the result sheet of Ashok. 

The Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB) declared the second PUC results for 2026 on April 9.

A total of 6,32,200 students appeared for the examination across all streams, of whom 5,46,698 passed, recording an overall pass percentage of 86.48 per cent.